Musings In The Shower After Everything's Changed
by buffyandspikefan
Summary: Set after recent events in New WarriorsWolverine: Origins. While taking a shower, Jubilee remembers the confrontation she and Wolverine had the night before. What was said that we didn't see in the issue? Reviews are much appreciated!


**Random Musings in the Shower After Everything's Changed**

I snapped awake, the way you always do when you're in unfamiliar surroundings. Shaking the cobwebs out of my head, I glanced around the dingy hotel room. Well, beggars can't be choosers when you're dressed in superhero tights – I supposed this was all you could get for cash and the promise of the desk clerk to look the other way.

Getting up, I padded silently to the bathroom. At least the towels looked reasonably clean and no cockroaches scattered when I flipped on the lights. I cranked the water, testing it and finding it deliciously warm. Ah, heaven. I stepped inside, shutting the curtain behind me, and effectively shutting out the rest of the world with it. I yanked the lever up, and the spray hit my bare skin in that flash of cold before it turned to heat, like an ice cold reminder of things previous…

"_Do you think we can trust Night Thrasher?"_

_My teammate, Blackwing, had frowned at my skeptism. "Of course we can. He's on our teammate."_

"_But how much do we know about him?" I had questioned. "He never takes off his mask, we have no idea who he is, yet he knows all about us."_

"_Maybe he's scarred or something. Why are you so untrusting?"_

"_Years of practice."_

_He snorted. "So that's what you learn in the X-Men, huh? To never trust your teammates because they might stab you in the back."_

"_Or sneak up on you," a familiar voice had growled, and my heart about stopped. Blackwing kept it together enough not to jump, but his eyes had widened and he sidestepped quickly, so as not to have his back to the famous Wolverine._

"_What are you doing here?" I had snapped at the new arrival._

My attitude had never been a deterrent to him, I acknowledged as I leaned back into the shower spray. He always took it in stride, probably because I did the same with him. That's why we were such good friends.

When he didn't forget my existence, that is.

"_Imagine my surprise when I turn on the television and see a wanted poster of these New Warriors that are causing Stark all this trouble and I see a very familiar face," he had said._

"_Please, you can't see my face."_

"_Figure then. Whatever. I knew it was you. Just what are you playing at, girl?"_

_I had shot him a dark look at the tone in his voice. Blackwing wisely stayed out of it._

_Logan however, did not. "You don't have powers anymore, Jubilee, do you know how dangerous that is?"_

"_Look who I was trained by," I had pointed out. "Besides, we have ways of giving ourselves powers now." I had demonstrated with a blast of power from my glove that took out a chunk of concrete right next to his head. He didn't even jump. _

"_Besides, what do you care?" I practically spit. "Omega Red practically took me right out from your nose and did you do one thing to help me?"_

_He had stepped closer to me, so we were practically nose-to-nose. "Who do you think made the deal to get you out of there?"_

I poured the shampoo into the palm of my hand and began working it through my short hair. I had remembered in that very moment a hazy snatch of a thought, of being in terrible pain and seeing him again. But I had thought it was a hallucination brought on by pain and my own wishful thinking. Not real. However…

"_You need to remember who you are and what you're fighting for," Logan had snapped to me and walked away. Just walked away, as if he had been there to impart that bit of parental wisdom and fade back into the night again._

I leaned back into the shower spray, and acknowledged that no matter how much I loved him, no matter how much I kidded myself that we were on an equal playing field, Logan felt otherwise. He felt he knew better than me, and maybe he did, but he also felt he was in the position to tell me so, like he was some sort of authority figure. And that really pissed me off.

"_I'll meet you back at HQ," I had said to Blackwing._

"_You sure?"_

"_Positive," I had said, turning my back on him and following Logan into the night._

"_Hey," I had said, whipping my mask off and striding forward to catch up to him. "What the fuck was that?"_

_It may have been the obscenity, one he had never heard uttered through my lips, that stopped him. He had turned to look at me, eyes showing his surprise. "What?"_

"_I said, what the fuck was that? Just who do you think you are, James Howlett?" He had flinched at the use of his real name from me as I drew closer to him. "Yeah, I know all about that. I found out the unholy mess that I stumbled into last time was from you regaining all of your memories and wanting revenge. So tell me something, James, when you remembered who you are, did you unlock some memory that you're my long-lost father or something? Because last time I checked, you weren't him!" I had thrown a punch at him, knowing exactly how he would react._

_His eyes had flashed fire as he blocked it easily and caught my arm in his steel grip, his fingers biting harshly into my flesh. He then whipped me backward, into the wall, still keeping my hand in his grip, effectively pinning me against the wall as he stared me down, figuratively-speaking. In my boots, I was still taller than him. "No, but last time I checked, you've seemed to consistently try to put yourself in the position of my responsibility since we met. You keep pressing for me to be your parental figure and protector and then get pissed off when I try to tell you what to do. And when I back off, you get pissed off when I don't come charging in on my white horse to rescue you. You don't know what the fuck you want." He had released me, turning away again, dismissing me. _

"_Oh, you're wrong about that," I had all but spat. "You're just stupid or blind enough to believe that's what I want from you."_

_He had turned back with a nasty laugh. "Oh really? So educate me, Miss Lee, what do you want from me?"_

I pried the paper wrapper off the soap and leaned outside of the shower curtain, tossing it into waste basket. I caught a flash of my blue eyes through the haze of the fogged up reflection of the mirror.

_I had never been more scared then I had been in that moment_.

I straightened and snapped the shower curtain shut behind me again, cutting off the rest of the world again and rubbing the soap across my body, now taking notice of the slight bruises and scratches here and there, ones I hadn't noticed receiving.

"_Y-You don't want to know," I had said, silently cursing the wobbling in my voice._

"_I'm asking, aren't I?"_

"_Fine." With that one word, I had finally made my intentions clear. I had cleared the small space between us, and pressed my lips to his._

_It was the longest moment of my life. I think it was mostly because I wanted to capture every scrap of sensation to keep for my very own forever. How he tasted like cigars and smelled of smoke and the woods and very male in a way that made my insides melt. How I felt the scratch of his rough facial hair on my chin and under my fingertips. How I could sense the tension radiating off of him, like something almost tactile, that spread from his mouth all the way down his body, like an iron spring or a caged animal, ready to strike. How nicely my body fit against his, as if this was what it had been made to do, and how, no matter how much he would deny it later, that he was enjoying this just as much as I was._

_And then my moment was over as quickly as it began, as he had pulled back, holding me at arm's length._

I turned to face the shower spray, closing my eyes and enjoying the sensation of the hot water beating down. I ran my hands across my face, feeling the ghost pinpricks of facial hair scraping my chin. The water ran like tears down my cheeks.

"_What the hell?" he had snarled._

_I had prepared myself for his reaction, and yet it still had stung. "Don't look at me like that, James."_

"_Don't…" He had run a hand over his head, pushing the hood that was his mask back to face me. Just so I could see the sorrow on his face. "Don't…call me that. I'm not that person anymore."_

"_And I'm not the person you make yourself think I am either," I had said, sagging back against the wall for support. I had looked up to find him staring so directly at me it made me shiver and I had looked away quickly, instead addressing his chin. "I'm not the same 13-year-old girl you met all those years ago. I haven't been for some time, in case you haven't noticed. I've traveled the world, with and without you, I've fought my share of villains, I've been rescued and I've done the rescuing. I've had my powers stripped away and felt that I had nothing left to live for, that the one family I had left abandoned me. And I haven't been a virgin since I moved to Hollywood with Angelo. I've lived what feels like several lifetimes in only 21 years. You're not Logan, you're not James, the man you are lies somewhere between the two. I'm not Jubilee, the little firecracker that followed 'Wolvie' around like a puppy for all of those years, and I'm not the bitter, hard-ass Wondra either. The woman I really am is between the two. And that puts us finally on equal ground." I gathered my courage and had raised my eyes to meet his gaze._

_Our eyes had locked and a thousand unspoken communications passed between us._

_And I had known without a doubt what he was going to say._

I snapped off the water and my thoughts with the same flick of the wrist. Steam drifted in the small space of the bathroom as I reached out to grasp a towel, wiping the water off one leg, and then the other, moving up my body to my arms, and giving my hair a quick rub-down. Wrapping the towel around my torso, it was so shrunken it barely covered me and that's saying a lot, I turned the handle and opened the door, leaving my watery sanctuary for my rundown one.

"Do you have to head back yet?" I asked from the doorway, unable to see him in the drawn-curtained darkness, but knowing he was awake anyway.

"Probably, but you know me, always running off to do my own thing." His voice was a grin. "How about you?"

I shrugged as I moved closer to the rumpled bed to catch his glittering blue eyes on me. "Probably, but you know me, always trailing along after you." I smiled at the last.

He returned it. "What are you doing, covering up with that?" He reached out to bypass the towel completely. "Shy suddenly?"

I shook my head. "Cold."

He snatched the towel away from me. "I'll fix that."


End file.
